1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a system, a program, and a method to lay out layout elements, such as text information and/or image information, and more particularly, to a template production system, a layout system, a template production program, a layout program, a layout template data structure, a template production method, and a layout method, suitable to produce a wide variety of layout templates using layout samples that may be very different from each other.
2. Description of Related Art
A digital content distribution system is known in the related art which provides digital contents, such as news contents to users. In such a digital content distribution system, in general, some digital contents are read from a content database (hereinafter, the database will be referred to simply as DB), the read digital contents are edited, and the resultant digital contents are provided to users. In the process of editing the digital contents, the digital contents are automatically laid out into a form that allows users to easily view the digital contents.
A technique of automatically laying out digital contents is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-312490 “Template Automatic Production System and Machine-Readable Storage Medium Including a Program Stored Therein”.
In this technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-312490, layout elements (such as text information and image information) laid at the same location are extracted from a plurality of layout samples selected by a user, and a layout template is produced by laying the extracted layout elements in the layout template. Actual layout elements are then laid in accordance with the produced layout template. This method makes it possible to automatically produce a page on which layout elements are laid in a manner desired by the user.